Month: May 2018

The next time you debate whether or not you have the time to take a vacation, consider the scientific reasons you should. There is a tremendous amount of science out there in support of taking time off from your everyday life. Moreover, heading out to a new place is also supported by these studies.

When it comes down to it, choosing to take a vacation doesn’t just feel good. It is good for you. Consider the top 3 scientific reasons you won’t want to skip out on that trip this year.

Scientific Reason #3 to Take a Vacation: Fitness

Research has shown that when you head off on vacation at least once a year, you’ll be better rested and have more energy. In fact, people who go away from work at least annually are more productive the rest of the time they’re there.

This goes for your fitness, too. Stepping away from your regular fitness routine to enjoy a fun holiday can refresh you for when you return. You won’t lose any meaningful progress during the time you’re away, but once you’re back, you’ll have the drive to boost your performance.

Furthermore, giving your body a thorough rest every now and again is fantastic for muscle recovery. Use your time when you take a vacation to try new activities and come home ready to get even more out of your usual fitness routine.

Scientific Reason #2 to Take a Vacation: Motivation

A study published by the American Psychological Association showed that taking trips away from everyday life can reduce stress and anxiety. When you’re not feeling the side effects of stress and anxiety, it’s far easier to feel motivated.

If you’ve found that your drive to keep up with your life has dwindled, consider taking a trip to get it back. Even better, the effects that you gain will continue for much longer than the vacation. Therefore, they’re not just something you’ll enjoy while you’re away.

If you really want to excel at what you do, taking some time away from it may be the key. This is true for just about any goal you’re pursuing. Whether you want a promotion at work or you want to get fit and lose weight, it still applies.

Scientific Reason #1 to Take a Vacation: Health

Taking time off work to head out and relax or go on adventures in a new place is fantastic for your health. Research has shown that people who take regular vacations complain less of backaches, headaches, and heart irregularities. Other studies have revealed that those who take trips have improved cardiovascular health.

A new top fitness trend is making its way around the world. It’s called “plogging.” Its goal is to help people to enjoy the run or jog they’ve always loved, while making their neighborhoods cleaner. It is considered to be the very latest in urban fitness.

The concept of this top fitness trend is to head out for a jog or a run as usual. That said, while you’re plogging you’ll have one extra piece of fitness equipment with you. Don’t worry, it’s not expensive or complicated. It’s just a garbage bag!

What is this Plogging Top Fitness Trend?

Plogging is a combination of jogging or running while picking up litter. It found its start in Sweden in 2016. This year, it has exploded in other countries, thanks to social media. The term is a combination of the word “jogging” with the Swedish words “plocka upp” which means picking up.

Although the most obvious benefits to this top fitness trend are that you get a workout and a cleaner neighborhood, there’s more to it. Plogging is being praised for adding new workout benefits for joggers to enjoy.

How is Plogging a Better Workout than Jogging?

This top fitness trend took off because of its eco-friendliness. However, many people find that it helps to improve their workout, too. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Plogging isn’t just the same as running down the sidewalk.

Plogging offers variation from the standard running and jogging movements. People who use it are not only helping to overcome litter and plastic pollution. They’re also reaching, bending, stretching and squatting. Moreover, they’re also carrying an increasingly heavy bag throughout their run. Indeed, the majority of the trash is quite light, but every little bit counts!

A Top Fitness Trend in the United States

Social media fell in love with the concept of plogging. This rapidly made it a top fitness trend this year, not even two full years after it was first created. It is encouraged both among joggers and from larger organizations, too.

The Keep America Beautiful Organization has officially started to encourage its affiliates to take part in plogging. It has also started combining the concept into some of its other programs. For example, in Tennessee, they have launched the Trashercize program to combine exercise with cleaning up.

This Top Fitness Trend Has Made Trash Bags Trendy

The first people to take part in plogging rapidly became accustomed to receiving odd looks from people. They were, after all, running through the streets with garbage bags in their hands. However, as social media educated people as to what that symbol meant, the impression rapidly changed.

Suddenly, this top fitness trend has created an entirely new opinion of garbage bags. In fact, it has made plastic shopping bags or black plastic garbage bags into a hot fitness accessory. Joggers who don’t want to keep their hands full the whole time are lining their pockets with plastic bags, so they can grab small pieces of trash they spot along their routes.

Top Fitness Trend on Social Media

Plogging spread the world by way of social media. It started off with a few stories on Facebook. Then it built to some trending hashtags on Twitter. These were shared on an increasing basis, particularly when images were involved.

Speaking of images, the more interest rose, the more people started to share the spoils of their plogging adventures on Instagram. It has become quite popular to create a pile of the garbage found along a jogging journey and photograph it for gawking followers. This has only encouraged more people to take part to see if they can find more than the people they follow.

A Top Fitness Trend Across Other Activities

As fast as plogging has taken off in Sweden, England, France, the United States, Canada and many other countries around the world, it has also evolved. The idea of picking up trash while exercising is exceptionally appealing to many people.

It lets them keep their workouts interesting and gives them another reason to feel great about what they’re doing. It doesn’t hurt to have something to do aside from daydreaming about the luxury beach villa http://villarentalsmexico.com/ vacation you’ve always wanted to take!

After all, if you’re tired of doing the same jogging route all the time, giving yourself a trash hunting goal can bring the interest level back again. Of course, this benefit couldn’t remain exclusive to joggers and runners for long. After all, there are many other sports and as spring gets into full gear, more people are heading out to get active.

Picking up trash has become a top fitness trend for cyclists, skateboarders and inline skaters, too. Even power walkers are getting into the swing of things.

The Story of “Trash Girl”

Among the stories that drew the most attention to plogging was of a 12-year-old in England. Nadia Sparkes made a habit of always stopping to pick up trash on her way to school. She rode her bike to school and made sure to take the time to pick up the garbage she saw along the way.

Bullies who didn’t realize this was a top fitness trend – and a highly respected one – harassed her. They nicknamed Nadia “Trash Girl.” They took every opportunity they could to taunt and ridicule her. They even started to throw things at her.

What the bullies didn’t realize was that they weren’t going to stop Nadia. If anything, they were showing that the only thing that was garbage was their own attitudes. In Nadia’s own words, “If they are going to call me Trash Girl, they can say it with respect.” She knew that by filling her bicycle basket with litter she picked up on the way to school, she was making her community better.

Nadia’s route was about two miles long and she made her best effort to ensure the stretch of roadside remained clean. It wasn’t long before social media took notice of what “Trash Girl” was doing. Unlike the closed-minded bullies at her school, the world fell in love with Nadia’s new spin on this top fitness trend.

At the encouragement of her mother she has owned the Trash Girl name along with her cycling and litter pickup. Since September, she has cycled at least four miles per day and has picked up over three full recycling bins worth of plastic.

How to Get Started with the Top Fitness Trend?

If you want to take part in the top fitness trend, it’s not hard at all. Just choose an activity that will take you outside. This may be walking, jogging, running, cycling or anything else that will have you traveling throughout your neighborhood.

Next, gear up, grab a garbage bag and head out on your way. As you go, keep your eyes open to watch for pieces of trash that you can pick up and bring home with you. Look for everything that doesn’t belong.

Among the most common types of trash along the roadsides are pieces of paper, plastic water bottles and cans. In most communities, these are all recyclable items. This means that they can be taken off the streets without having a negative impact on landfills.

Many ploggers find that the best days for coming home with trash from this top fitness trend are garbage pickup days. Despite the best efforts of neighbors, wind or garbage collection errors can send trash out of the bins and down the street. This gives ploggers new opportunities to make a difference.

What to Do with the Spoils from this Top Fitness Trend

Once you get home, you may be tempted to jam the entire contents of your bag into your trash can. However, if you truly want to make a difference through this top fitness trend, there are other steps you can take.

The first is to snap a picture of everything you’ve collected. After all, it’s fun to take part of the social media side of this top fitness trend, too. Share what you found along the way and don’t forget to use applicable hashtags to get the most mileage out of it.

Next, sort through everything you’ve found. If your municipality recycles, has a compost service and other alternatives to regular garbage, use them. Place each item in the right bin so you won’t solve one problem by compounding another.

Once you’ve done that, it’s important to wash your hands and to do it well. The odds are that you won’t want to head out jogging while wearing plastic gloves. That’s not a problem, but don’t forget to give your hands a good scrubbing when you’re done!

Trash to Avoid Picking Up

There are certain kinds of trash that you should avoid picking up unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing. The last thing this top fitness trend is designed to do is cause you harm.

Among the items you should leave alone include syringes, razors, razor blades, bandages, condoms and anything else that could cut you or that has been in contact with another person’s bodily fluids. These are items that require more than a garbage bag for safe collection.

If you’re determined to pick them up, make sure you have the right equipment with you while you enjoy this top fitness trend. Alternately, call your local waste collection authority for advice for safe collection and disposal.

You know that eating healthy, nutritious foods is the best thing that you could do for your body. After all, nutrition is the foundation to good health, right? But let’s be honest, the healthiest foods aren’t always the tastiest, so staying on track could be really tough. For example, rather than reaching for the broccoli, you might reach for the spaghetti instead. Read more “7 Ways to Stay Motivated to Eat Right”→

Aerial yoga is a gorgeous new way to add something new to your routine. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re in for a treat. Think about your favorite yoga workout pose. Now imagine how that same pose would feel if you were holding it while a piece of fabric held you in the air!

Did you just get a rush of excitement? You should! Aerial yoga is an exciting concept that allows you to combine everything you love about yoga in a whole new way. You won’t be able to practice these exercises at home, but a studio near you will likely offer it. This video of a class is an excellent example of what you might find yourself doing during an aerial yoga session:

What’s in an Aerial Yoga Classroom?

Since it’s a very hot trend, many classes are popping up across the country. They all want to accommodate everyone interested in feeling like an aerial circus performer. Aerial yoga studios are rooms with brightly colored lengths of fabric hanging from the ceiling. These are what you will use to wrap around your arms and legs to hold yourself aloft as you achieve your poses.

The movements are quite similar to the ones you see from aerial circus performers. They use the fabric lengths – known as hammocks or slings – to experience yoga in a whole new way. Aerial yoga class instructors will help you to learn just how to safely move to experience the peaceful movements as you rise off the floor.

What is Aerial Yoga?

Aerial yoga was created in the United States. It uses moves from aerial circus training, which are often rooted in yoga poses in the first place. Instructors of this type of practice focus on the poses more than the acrobatics that you would see in a circus performance.

As much as it may sound complex and as though it is appropriate for only the highly experience, that is not typically the case. You can usually find an aerial yoga class appropriate for your fitness level no matter how athletic you are (or aren’t).

At first, you may feel as though you’re taking on circus-based moves. That said, as you achieve your poses it begins to take on an experience far more similar to traditional yoga. In this way, many people compare it to Pilates as the basis remains yoga poses, but there is more activity involved.

Is Aerial Yoga for You?

Before taking on any new fitness routine, it’s always a good idea to speak with your doctor. That way you can be sure that there won’t be anything involved that could inadvertently cause you harm. Moreover, while you’re there, you can take the opportunity to discuss various weight loss tools.

Why should you be talking about it in the context of weight loss? Because it is a fantastic head-to-toe workout. A good instructor will give you the chance to work every major muscle group. You will be feeling that workout that evening and the next day, but it will be well worth it.

Once your doctor has given you the go-ahead, then it’s up to you to decide whether or not you think that an aerial yoga class will be fun for you. Before signing up, take the opportunity to speak with the instructor. Ask if you can sit in on a class or if you can participate in one class before you sign up for a several.

Benefits of Aerial Yoga

When you do aerial yoga, you’re getting a great full body workout. It’s particularly great for your arms and your core. Furthermore, it helps you to stretch you in various directions, improving your flexibility.

Moreover, there is no impact throughout the workout. This makes it easier on your joints. Many people with certain forms of injury can use this type of workout in the same way they’d use swimming. It helps them to make sure they’re still getting the exercise they need without hurting their joints.

As much as it may look like you’re holding yourself up in the air – and you are – the hammocks provide a great deal of support. They offer the stability as you achieve each new pose. Equally, for people who want to be challenged, the hammocks can also take your traditional floor yoga to a whole new level.

That said, it should be noted that the torque of the fabric may be too much for people who have had joint replacements. In those cases, this may not be an appropriate type of exercise for you.

Aerial Yoga for Kids and Special Needs Athletes

Due to the freeing feeling of aerial yoga, it is often a hit with children as well as with special needs athletes. There are a growing number of classes offered for these groups. That said, the numbers remain far more limited than those for typical adults.

Therefore, if you want a kids or special needs class to open in your area, start calling around and making requests. Call other parents or athletes with special needs to have them make the same calls. As gyms and studios find there is a market out there, they will look into the chance to serve it.

It’s not typically very difficult for aerial yoga to be adapted to kids and people with special needs. It’s just a matter of altering the routine to suit their capabilities and reach.

Is Aerial Yoga Safe?

One of the most commonly asked question about aerial yoga classes has to do with safety. After all, lifting yourself off the ground by a piece of cloth sounds rather hazardous. This seems particularly true when you’re not in great shape.

That said, most instructors will tell you that it’s more dangerous to be standing on the floor in those classes than it is to be up in the hammocks. A very good class will have an instructor watching everyone the whole time. That way, the instructor can correct your poses along the way and make sure you’re doing them right. You will be supported the whole time.

Drawbacks of Aerial Yoga

As graceful and freeing as it can look and feel to move and twirl in the hammock, it can take its toll on your body. Indeed, it is a no-impact exercise. However, when you twist your body around the hammock, it can cause bruising. This is particularly true if you hold yourself in the twisted fabric for a while.

Another risk is for people who are prone to vertigo or motion sickness. As you will be several feet off the floor and you will twirl with the fabric, this may affect you. People prone to vertigo or motion sickness may feel nauseated at points, particularly early on.

Is Aerial Yoga Difficult to Start?

Most of the people who sign up for aerial yoga are women. The vast majority of women who are not involved in sports don’t usually have strong upper bodies. This can make some of the moves rather challenging at first. It does, after all, work the arms and core the most.

However, among the top benefits is that as it works the arms and core, it strengthens them. Therefore, the more women attend their aerial yoga classes, the stronger their upper bodies get. This is beneficial in many parts of their lives and helps to make women feel more confident, too.

If You’re Already Great at Yoga, Are You Still an Aerial Beginner?

If you haven’t done aerial yoga before, then you’re a beginner. This is true regardless of how advanced you may be at traditional yoga. The reason is that while the concepts may be similar, they are not the same.

Furthermore, the aerial classes have their own sets of terminologies. You may be able to achieve some of the poses earlier because your yoga experience may have given you greater core and arm strength. That said, you must still discover how to use the hammocks.

Once you get better at it, you can use the hammocks to wrap yourself up several times over. By doing this, you’ll be higher above the floor for your poses. Equally, you can learn various types of climb, splits, back bends, headstands and handstands.

For fun, you can also learn how to do some of the choreographed movements. You can do this on your own or with a partner or whole class. This involves a series of poses linked from one to the next. That said, you will need to be in a more advanced class at a higher fitness level for that. It requires strength and endurance.

Are the Hammocks Strong Enough to Hold Any Bodyweight?

A typical studio’s rigging will be constructed to be able to hold between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds. That being the case, you should be more than safe on the equipment regardless of your bodyweight.

Is Aerial Yoga More Cardio or Relaxing?

Interestingly, it’s both. As you hold poses for a length of time, you will start to build a sweat. It’s not like a standard cardio class but you will certainly get your heart pumping.

Equally, aerial yoga classes also typically practice several minutes of relaxation and meditation. The hammock can provide extremely peaceful support near the end of the class. It feels very similar to the savasana at the end of a traditional yoga class.

Isn’t it funny how the right sayings for weight loss can be what truly motivate you? Even beyond visualizing how great it will feel to achieve your goal? Better than giving yourself a pep talk every morning.

The perfect sayings for weight loss can help us to get to the core of what’s driving us. That said, it’s up to you to find the ones that will work for you. Just because your friend or sister finds a saying inspirational, it doesn’t mean it’s the one for you.

Let these Motivational Sayings for Weight Loss Inspire You

• Slow and steady wins the race.

The first of these sayings for weight loss reminds you that you can learn from the tortoise who won the race against the hare. If you want to drop the pounds and maintain that lost weight, you need to do it gradually and consistently. Rapidly lost weight leads to regained pounds and huge disappointments.

• You’re the only one who can change your life. No one else can do it for you.

Recognizing that you’re the one with the ability to change your life is powerful. Stop looking to, and waiting for, other people to improve your health and lifestyle. If you don’t make the choice to change, nothing will happen. You’re the only one in control of yourself.

• Today’s struggles make you stronger tomorrow.

Among the motivational sayings for weight loss, this one is an important reminder of why you’re going through these challenges. It’s hard to lose weight. It can be tough to change your lifestyle. Breaking habits and forming new ones isn’t always easy. That said, you’re going through it now because it will make you stronger in the future. With that strength will come greater ease.

• Food should satisfy a hunger more important than that in your belly.

Your body has hungers for your food. That said, among the sayings for weight loss, this one reminds us that eating should do more than satisfy your grumbling tummy. Your body has nutritional needs that must also be satisfied. Your cells, organs and systems hunger for macronutrients and micronutrients that help it function at its best.